The Fort Campbell Debacle Revisited.

Gov. Beshear and Obama's Fort Campbell visit
By Joe Gerth

Gov. Steve Beshear, as it turns out, bought himself a peck of trouble Derby Week when he and his office told reporters that he couldn't rearrange his schedule to meet President Barack Obama.

Obama, as you recall, made the only trip of his presidency to Kentucky that week to honor the Navy Seals who shot and killed Osama bin Laden. And Beshear couldn't make it because he had pressing duties at the Kentucky Oaks.

Turns out, according to Roger Alford of the Associated Press, Beshear was never even invited to the event. No officials in Kentucky were.

So now we've got Senate President David Williams, Beshear's opponent in the November election, claiming that Beshear lied in a pathetic attempt to distance himself from a president who is unpopular in Kentucky.

And we've got Beshear backtracking and saying that he never claimed to have an invitation in hand and that he believes, as governor, it's his right to go and meet the president if he comes to Kentucky.

Calling that a "lie" maybe goes a bit too far but it's clear that Beshear didn't tell the whole truth, leaving the impression that the White House had asked him to the event at Fort Campbell.

You have to believe he knew what he was doing or at least how it was being perceived, or his campaign staff would have tried to correct the numerous reports on television, radio and in newspapers that suggested that he was stiffing the Commander in Chief.

Editorials criticized him. Williams and independent gubernatorial candidate Gatewood Galbraith both rapped him, suggesting Beshear was unpatriotic because the event was more about the troops than it was Obama.

You've got to wonder how unpopular Obama is in Kentucky in Beshear's internal campaign polls, if he's willing to take those sorts shots without correcting the record.

The fact is that Beshear has never been a big supporter of Obama.

Though he said recently that he would support Obama for president, Beshear was slow to support him in 2007, waiting until he got to Denver for the Democratic National Convention before announcing that he would vote to make Obama the nominee.

He's said little supportive of the 2010 healthcare reform package that is the key legislation of Obama's presidency, and during his State of the Commonwealth address this year, he told Obama's coal regulators "get off our backs."

Nevertheless, Williams has tried to hang Obama around Beshear's neck since before he even won the Republican Primary and the right to face the incumbent governor in the fall.

Williams rarely speaks without mentioning Obama and Beshear several times in the same breath.

Ted Jackson, a Republican campaign consultant, believes that's Williams only shot of winning, following The Courier-Journal/WHAS11 Bluegrass Poll released Sunday that showed Beshear with a 24 percentage point lead.

A poll last month by Insight's CN|2 cable television channel showed Beshear with a 21 point lead.

Trailing Beshear in cash on hand by about $2.6 million last month, a Williams victory may seem like a longshot. That said, Beshear really doesn't want the discussion to be about whether he lied about being invited to see the president.